Investigating the paradoxes of workplace well-being: a systematic realist review of workplace wellness intervention

Under the happy-productive worker hypothesis, organisations invest significant resources in employee well-being with the expectation of organisational benefits. However, more evidence is needed to understand the extent wellness interventions generate mutual gains for both well-being and work outcomes. This review combines systematic and realist approaches to examine 154 individual-level wellness intervention studies and the contextual factors that enable – or limit – their success. Drawing from management training literature, we apply Holton’s model of learning transfer, which emphasises the role of individual and contextual factors in shaping transfer motivation, transfer design, and the transfer climate. We find that wellness interventions consistently enhance employee well-being but do not reliably lead to improvements in workplace outcomes, such as performance. Our analysis identifies the programme mechanisms that support training transfer and contribute to mutual gains: transfer design is enabled when interventions have programme characteristics that reflect the work context; transfer motivation was bolstered when organisations gave thoughtful consideration of participants’ needs and engagement strategies; and transfer climate was enabled by factors like supervisor support and organisational culture that reinforced cultural fit. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, emphasising context-sensitive interventions that optimise wellness programmes for learning transfer to enable mutual gains.